


Funny Night Off

by Umbralpilot



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Abbie explains it all, Angst and Humor, Creepy kids, Gen, Halloween, Ichabod vs. the 21st Century, Scary Movies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 13:09:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1094228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Umbralpilot/pseuds/Umbralpilot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You want to take Halloween off – Halloween, in Sleepy Hollow – and spend it putting Crane – Revolutionary soldier, Oxford professor Crane – through a horror movie marathon?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Funny Night Off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [calliopes_pen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calliopes_pen/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, [calliopes_pen](http://archiveofourown.org/works/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&work_search%5Bquery%5D=calliopes_pen)! Hope you're happy with what I've done with your prompt. It was inspiring. 
> 
> Hats off to [LoveChilde](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveChilde/pseuds/LoveChilde) for the beta, and my eternal champion [Paperiuni](http://archiveofourown.org/users/paperiuni/pseuds/paperiuni) for keeping me writing through the Yuletide panic. Couldn't have done it without you.

To Irving, Abbie explained it as research.

“To be frank, sir, we don't know what's going to jump at us next,” she said, back straight, lips pursed, hands crossed behind her. “I've got to get my info from somewhere. I'm thinking a lot of this stuff has some truth in it, or people wouldn't be so attracted to it. Anything's worth a try.”

Irving Looked at her in that way that she could feel the capital L in – the kind of look that said that he was going to let her do whatever she wanted, but that he held her personally responsible for how this had become his life. 

“So you want to take Halloween off – Halloween, in Sleepy Hollow – and spend it putting Crane – Revolutionary soldier, Oxford professor Crane – through a horror movie marathon?”

“Yessir,” Abbie said.

Irving's response was pretty much as planned. He crossed his arms, gave a very deep, very long-suffering sigh, and nodded. 

“Just don't let your guard down, Lieutenant,” he said. “You know it better than me. Nothing's too weird for this town anymore.”

“You know me, Captain,” Abbie answered, confident. “I always take this stuff seriously.” 

 

~*~

 

“What abomination have the people of your century made of All Hallows' Eve?” Ichabod asked tartly. 

Abbie beamed at him from under the brim of her pointy hat. She wore it with the closest she could come in Crane's presence to a little black dress, and frankly thought that she looked fabulous. “Come on, Crane, it's the one night a year you get to walk around dressed like you are and fit right in.”

He quirked a brow. His lip curled slightly. “At home among the madmen,” he noted, sardonic, and returned to his gentleman scientist's inspection of the bag of caramel popcorn. He picked out a kernel and held it up for inspection, so close before his eyes that they crossed slightly. “I shudder to think at what my Native friends would have thought of this elaboration on their recipe.” 

She was, Abbie realized, in a surprisingly bullshit-tolerant mood, so she restricted her reaction to picking the kernel from between his fingers and popping it into her mouth. Then she dumped the rest of the contents of her bag onto the coffee table. Ichabod instantly brightened at the sight of the crispy M&Ms, then proceeded to gape in wonder at the Milky Ways, the KitKats, the Twizzlers, the Skittles and the Butterfingers.

“Are we expecting to entertain a small army?”

“Only of kids,” Abbie joked, then blinked when it fell flat. “Come on. You didn't have trick or treating either?”

She explained the concept. Ichabod caught up quickly as usual.

“This is a one-night protection racket.” Which was, it seemed, an affront on the scale of a ten percent tax on baked goods. Abbie gave an undignified snort. Then she pulled out the piece de resistance.

“Before you say anything, I'm well aware of the irony,” she started her disclaimer before the first movie even touched the table. “We're already dealing with so much creepy supernatural stuff, maybe it is crazy to want to watch more of it. I guess these things just get my blood pumping. And I figured maybe we could pick up a few useful tricks - “

She stopped. Ichabod was mesmerized by the shining surface of one of the DVDs. 

“Okay,” she said weakly. “Let's try that from the top.”

 

~*~

 

“So the stories are entirely fictional.”

“Yup.” Abbie nodded, pleased that the explanation was getting through well so far. Crane was a fast learner. She suspected he'd be even faster if he didn't stop to comment on how half of what he was learning was ridiculous. “Some horror movies claim to be based on reality, but those are seriously not my thing.” She gave the _Scream Director's Cut_ a loving pat. “Only fictional monsters here.”

Ichabod was holding _28 Days Later_ by its corner, dangling between thumb and forefinger. “And watching these films is as much a tradition of the holiday as the costumes, the candy extortion, and the criminal waste of vast quantities of gourds.” 

“It is, yeah. But this is a bit more personal.” She shrugged. He glanced up and she could tell that he'd shifted his attention entirely to her. Smooth guy. He could always tell when she wasn't really happy to elaborate on something. That was always his cue to get serious and listening and our-destinies-are-entwined. “I like watching the monsters get taken out, okay? Halloween is the one night where weird is just expected. When the only qualification for fighting evil is being sixteen to twenty-five and a virgin. Which makes it the one time when I can forget that this stuff is real and pretend it's fun. And Moloch is _not_ taking that away from me.”

She was just starting to get proud slash kind of awkward at the strength of her convictions when Ichabod cleared his throat, and put the DVD box back down with renewed respect. “Well,” he said, “you have been suggesting that I attempt to immerse myself in more... contemporary delights.”

That was one of the things she liked about him so much. He could make a horror movie marathon on Halloween sound so damn intellectual. “Attaboy. Now let's see what freaks you out more, the zombies or the 21st century high schoolers.”

 

~*~

 

“What an unexpectedly positive surprise.”

“Excuse me?”

“Really, Miss Mills, I had no idea that your century educated its young men so thoroughly in the art of surviving supernatural peril.”

“Crane, what are you talking about?

“Those _rules_. I assume that they must be a recent discovery, otherwise Washington would surely have been aware of them.”

“Wait, you mean Randy's rules?”

“They do make a great deal of innate sense when I consider it. The encouragement of restraint in a period that is so careless in its mores – “

Abbie took a long and meaningful swig of beer.

“Lieutenant.” Ichabod was aghast. 

“Hey.” She threw her hands up in self-defence. “I'm Black. Not even being a virgin could save me. I might as well enjoy the time I've got.” She emptied the bottle before his disbelieving eyes and went around the couch towards the kitchen. It was good beer actually. Two bucks a bottle for the Halloween deal. “Left the other six pack in the fridge. I'll be right back.” Listening to Ichabod Crane's little choking noises? Priceless. 

 

~*~

 

The first group of trick-or-treaters was a surprisingly smooth experience. Abbie thought she'd never get used to how good Crane was with kids: maybe he just struck her as too British for it. He crouched down in front of the two girls, complimented the six years old for the excellent bedazzling of her dress (“Miss Mills, this child is wearing more jewels than Queen Charlotte”) and her twelve years old sister for the realism of her vampire costume (“but why did the other young lady also glitter?”) and responded with stiff upper lipped restraint when the baby brother popped up from behind them and tested his With Real Webshooting Action Amazing Spider-Man costume right between his eyes. 

“I understand that the boy was dressed as one of your supreme heroes,” he said to her later as he tried to rub away the mark.

“Does whatever a spider can,” Abbie agreed, just to see him do the little eyebrow twitch that was the Revolutionary War vocabulary equivalent of _whatever_.

“And the elder girl was masquerading as a monster of some sort.”

“Yep.” She decided to save the Twilight Talk – the erosion of literacy and culture, the collapse of moral decency, Mormonism – for another time.

Ichabod processed that for a moment. He looked from the television set to the still high pile of DVDs with distaste.

“Why would a young lady wish to appear as a monster?” 

He sounded like he was just musing, like it was some kind of ineffable riddle of the modern age. Abbie scoffed and crossed her arms.

“It's not that mysterious, Crane.” She leaned back and propped her feet up on the coffee table. “Girls often get told that they're weak, that we've got to be protected. Even you -” he started to protest and she held up a hand right under his nose. “Don't give me that. You know damn well what I'm talking about. Well, sometimes we just have enough of that. Sometimes you think, I am so tired of being monster food, why can't I be the monster instead?” She cast a wistful glance at the doorway despite the kids having moved on a while ago. Ichabod was still frowning at her.

“You are not a monster, Lieutenant.”

“Didn't say I was.” Okay, she was the one mumbling and musing now. No more of that. She shoved the bucket of caramel popcorn at him. “Fuel up. The next one's my favorite.”

 

~*~

 

“Don't split up! Oh my god! Why do they never ever learn?!”

“Miss Mills - “

“You know that's when one of you finds the guy! He's just waiting for you to do this!”

“Miss Mills, I – “

“You've supposed to be a huge fan! You've watched like a billion vampire hunting movies! Come _ooooon_!”

“Did you not say that you've already watched this film - ?”

“I _told_ you not to go alone how are you so useless if you die that is entirely your fault - “

“Miss Mills, I don't believe that Mr. Brewster can hear you inside this television box no matter how loudly you announce your disappointment – “

“Shush, you. Tradition.”

 

~*~

 

“Crane! _What did we just learn_!” 

Abbie came hurtling out of the front door. Ichabod had a bit of a head start on her, but he was slowed down by confusion on two fronts: first, when the sword he'd seized on his way out turned out to be made of rubber, and second, when the Headless Horseman broke into a frenzied flight and then into two halves, the rider continuing to run with the front of the horse attached while the back of the horse stumbled over itself gracelessly and lay groaning on the pavement.

Thanks to some kind of divine intervention or another, Ichabod stopped in his tracks about then and it was Abbie who made it first to the side of the unfortunate horse-bottom. She helped the teenaged boy out of it. He was unharmed, other than the understandable pants-pissing terror of having a livid Revolutionary soldier charge him with a massive replica broadsword. Abbie thought she ought to try to explain, then settled for a weary “he lives with me”, which instantly transformed any offence taken into sympathy.

Ichabod had reasserted his steaming fury by the time she'd sent the kid off after his other half and dragged him back into the house by the sadly metaphorical ear. His eyes were wide and blazing. She had to use the particularly loud Officer Mills voice to make him let her finish her rant before he started his. “Have you gone completely stupid?! A, if that'd actually _been_ the Horseman, you'd have been chopped liver now, and B, you could have seriously hurt a pair of kids whose only crime – “

“A pair of no-good wretches who are making mockery of an evil that has terrorized this town – !”

“It's Halloween! Mocking this stuff is what you do!” 

“There is no humor in the end of days!”

“Oh yeah?” Abbie stopped in her tracks just past the doorway, hands on her hips, and was about to list off the Horseman of War toting a machine gun, the ancient evil order of Germans, the glowy fake skulls caper and the 250 years old guy namedropping Founding Fathers left and right, when she realized that the poor bastard wouldn't get any of it. He lacked the cultural acumen. For some reason, it made her feel even more sorry for him than usual.

“Look,” she said instead, “people just cope in different ways. Sometimes the only way to stop being scared of something is to laugh at it.”

He huffed at her. He'd deflated slightly, and was now sitting back on the couch, back straight, jabbing a finger at her DVD player. “Is that why we are watching these – these absurd charades?”

“Yes, actually.” She closed the door behind her. And locked it. “We're getting a different perspective. You watch enough of them, and you'll see what I mean.”

“I shall, as ever, put my trust in your wisdom of the times.” He said it with that grumpy little flourish. Abbie decided not to tell him that that was also hilarious in its way. 

“Alright, no more trick or treaters for you,” she said instead. “Just eat all the candy by yourself.” And she definitely could never tell him how funny it was that that perked him right up, but sometimes it was the little things. 

 

~*~

 

“Oh, please! Surely you are both aware that neither of them can be dead!”

“You tell 'em, Crane.”

“Are you not meant to have vast experience in such matters? I was under the impression that the town has been tormented by this killer for years. Perhaps if his extermination was not continuously left in the hands of schoolchildren, this would not be the – which in the series is it again, Miss Mills?”

“It's a crossover.”

“... perhaps there would have been no need to come to this _crossover!_ ”

Oh god she had to stop him she was going to die. 

“How unsurprising,” Ichabod said dryly as Freddy's disembodied head leered. He leaned back into the ratty embrace of the couch and took a handful of caramel popcorn. “Although I must commend the young lady's technique with the cutlass. A delightfully brutal weapon.”

“I want one for my next birthday,” Abbie said very seriously. She got up to refill the popcorn bowl, but stopped as she caught side of the window. “Hey, Crane? Am I seeing things?”

Ichabod half-turned and followed her gaze. From the way his brow furrowed she could tell that he saw it too. “Is that a child?”

“Looks like.” It had to be, the hands pressed against the glass were small and delicate – the kid couldn't be more than eight. It was hard to tell, though, because of the mask they had on. She thought it was a fox on first glance, but now she wasn't so sure. Maybe a badly made fox, with those mismatched buttons for eyes and the way its pink rubber tongue lolled out of the corner of its snout. She wasn't sure how the child was seeing anything through the mask either. She walked up to the window and rapped on it with one finger.

“Hey, kid? You okay out there?”

“Perhaps he is protesting being deprived of his protection candy,” Ichabod put in. “Send him away. Tell him that we will not tolerate this tyranny any longer.”

“For the last time, kids on Halloween are _not_ agents of the Mob.” Abbie surprised herself a little with her tone. She didn't get why she was nervous. “It's okay, sweetie, you can come in.” Even if that really was a creepy mask. That just meant the kid deserved a reward. It couldn't possibly be anything other than that. That would just be silly. 

 

~*~

 

In the end, of course, it was.

The fact that they were surprised was to Abbie a kind of adding insult to injury. The injury being that the lights began to flicker ominously, the door and windows shut and locked themselves, and suddenly the kid in the mask was right there in her living room, holding a bag of something that made un-candy-like hissing and chittering noises. Abbie grabbed an empty beer bottle and took a swing at it. It flickered when hit and vanished only to reappear behind her, where Ichabod attempted to grab it from behind. This turned out to be exactly as bad an idea as Abbie could have told him, and he let go with a choking groan of pain and crumpled, the skin of his hands steaming. 

“Crane!” Abbie's howl was equal parts anxiety and ongoing affront that this was still happening, actually happening, right now, on Halloween, in the middle of her horror movie marathon. This was not okay. Her gun was stashed away in the safe in her bedroom and they had left all their crazy-hunting supplies back at base. They were going to get killed by a creepy kid while in the background Ash was going on about his boom-stick and if there was an eternal afterlife then Jenny would spend all of it laughing at her. With a strength born of indignant despair she grabbed the nearest heavy object, acutely aware that it was her Hammer House of Horror Complete Collection box, and hurled it at the demon with the faint hope of at least creating enough of a distraction to allow her to check on Ichabod. The little bastard responded by dematerializing again, which sent the massive box flying right at and then right through the window behind it with a crash of glass.

Immediately, something came flying back into the house, bounced off the TV and onto the floor right in front of her. Abbie grabbed it and, in a mad rush of instinct, hurled it at the leering fox. She barely had time to register that the weapon she'd just used was, in fact, a pink and blue baby's rattle, before the monster child started screaming. The sounds it made became increasingly shrill and less and less even remotely human as it dropped hissing bag and clawed at its own masked face, tore the flimsy paper-mâché off and exposed pallid skin and blank black eyes, rolling around in their sockets as its mouth deformed. Its own skin began to hiss and boil. It spun around itself, giving off smoke and shrieks of agony, and finally, _finally_ sputtered out, collapsing in on itself in a shower of sparks and the stench of burning flesh and paper and sugar. 

“Mills?” came an anxious voice from outside. Irving's voice. “Crane?”

It was an incredibly disturbing thought, but Abbie could kiss him. She picked herself up from where she'd crouched on top of Ichabod, shielding her dazed friend from the worst of the onslaught. Ichabod was blinking rapidly and his hands trembled, but he looked otherwise unharmed, which was more than Abbie could say for her nerves. She navigated through the chaos of her living room – torn bags of crispy M&MS, broken DVD boxes, plastic bats and spiders strewn everywhere like victims of a little war – and unlocked the door. Somehow she managed not to hug Irving when she saw him there.

“Great timing, sir,” she said instead. 

“Isn't it just,” Irving answered dryly. “Now I seem to recall telling _someone_ that Halloween is no time to be letting your guard down. Am I misremembering, Lieutenant?” 

Abbie had the good sense to look guilty. Irving nailed her with the Look for a long minute before glancing up to where Ichabod, too, had picked himself off the floor and was limping towards them. His hair had come loose and he had the bewildered look of someone to whom the idea of a creepy masked kid appearing inside your house on Halloween to try and murder you was completely foreign rather than old enough to be embarrassing. 

“Dear god,” he muttered. “What was that?”

“Black-eyed kid,” Irving answered. He stepped in and nonchalantly picked up the rattle he had tossed in through the window, which now lay on top of a neat pile of ashes. “I've been stalking it all night. They can only come in if you invite them. Guess this one was trying to be clever on Halloween. You can only break the trap spell they cast from the inside, so good job on that, too. Turns out, they're sensitive to anything symbolizing innocence.” He sounded very proud of having figured it out all by himself. “I looked them up online.”

“It seems that we owe our lives to you, and the miracles of the Inter Net.” Ichabod still intoned the word like a sacred name. Abbie choked on a very unintended giggle. Both men looked at her, and she threw her hands up, backing a step.

“Sorry. Sorry. This is not – I am just - “ she backed another step. Then the backs of her knees touched the couch and she sat down rather abruptly. She leaned her elbows on the coffee table. She put her face in her hands. Ichabod was immediately crouching at her side, which made it slightly easier to be aware that Irving was still looking at her from the doorway. “This is really not supposed to happen,” she said into her palms. “God. This was supposed to be my night off. My _funny_ night off. Fictional monsters only. This is not fair.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw Ichabod and Irving exchange looks, in Ichabod's case this look being a very meaningful one that made the captain nod, then walk them and into the kitchen, giving the two of them their space. Ichabod now had his hand on her shoulder. He spoke quietly into her ear.

“The madness inflicted upon us by this world is truly endless,” he said. “However, I must point out that the monster has been, as you put it, 'taken out', despite being real. With... astonishing efficiency,” he added, glancing around the room. Abbie gave a weak little laugh.

“Correct me if I've misunderstood,” her fellow Witness continued, “but I seem to have observed that the monsters in your _horror movies_ are most often dispatched by resourceful young women.”

“The Final Girl,” Abbie mumbled. 

“The Final Girl,” Ichabod echoed, sagely. “You've said it yourself, Miss Mills. These films are not simply entertainment. They are an inspiration. They have shown you that you are well capable of scoring victories, even when the monsters are real. What you have watched others do in fiction, you can now do yourself, in reality.” 

He was talking like a self-help book. He was also squeezing her arm a little, long, warm fingers holding her tight. Abbie sniffed. She was rather miffed at herself for crying a little and even more so when she realized that they were sappy gratitude tears. She screwed up her face to look brave and nodded. “I'm the Final Girl,” she said. It sounded crazy, and it made her grin stupidly. “Killed a real monster on Halloween. Didn't even have to be in high school to do it.” She leaned a little and put her head on Ichabod's shoulder. 

“May I note,” he said, “that you did not have to be a lone survivor either.”

She didn't know how he did it, maybe it really was an our-destinies-are-entwined thing, but Abbie was left with ridiculous, Halloween-inappropriate warm and fluffy feelings for the rest of the night, even when she, Ichabod and Irving had to work to put the living room back together and she found the squished remains of her pointy black hat. She fixed it up, though, and put it back in a jaunty angle, and invited Irving to finish _Army of Darkness_ with them. That was how Jenny found them half an hour later, when she came in with a bag of candy big enough to give the average kid a sugar rush that would last her until she could legally swap it with alcohol. She stopped at the doorway and stared.

“Sis, are you having _fun_?” she asked. “Okay, that is scary.”

“You have no idea,” Abbie said serenely, and moved a bit on the couch to make room for one more.

**Author's Note:**

> Ichabod and Abbie are watching, in order, _Scream_ , _Fright Night_ and _Freddy Versus Jason_.
> 
> Black-eyed kids are an internet urban legend and, as far as I could determine, are not actually harmed by symbols of innocence. So don't try this at home, I guess.
> 
> I love Abbie's pointy hat and I'm not sorry.


End file.
